Vintage mass produced furniture is rocking auction houses

Vintage sells for big bucks and this is yesterday’s news. When we’re talking furniture, there are plenty of iconic pieces that many people would pay a small fortune to have in their homes. Just think about the iconic chairs that shaped the world of design today: van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair, Corbusier’s LC4 chaiselongue or Eero Saarinen’s Tulip chair – these are all jewels that are sold for a lot of money. But there’s a curious thing happening: vintage mass market pieces also started to reclaim their place.

But not every mass marketed vintage piece has a place at the table when it comes to vintage design auctions. Ikea, which is well rooted inside out minds as „affordable furniture” joined the big table with some pieces dating from back in the day. Back then, even cheap furniture that was mass produced had a high level of quality – the one that enables the pieces to still look like new after being used for 50 years.

Moreover, collaboration with the designers of the time contributed to these pieces becoming iconic for either a part of the population or even for the design world in general, considering that they were the stars of a new movement in the design thinking process. Third, but not least, the pieces that are reported at auction houses are part of limited series, so there are not many left for the world to buy.

The indisputable queen is the piece known as „the mushroom chair”, designed in 1944 and sold for a whooping 50,000 pounds. A retro, midcentury, bookcase sold for 6,000 pounds, while a newer piece, such as the Vibert chair by well known designer Verner Panton, sells for more than 1,200 dollars. Many other chairs are valued at around 1,000 dollars and there’s a ceramic set from the 90’s that also reached the 1,200 dollar bar.